Florida Atlantic University's Journalism students are a special breed of amazing. Obviously, I'm a little biased... Like every other major, you know the signs that show you chose a particular major. For the J-School kids, here's just a few...
- Driving to the Davie Campus. While nearly every FAU student knows the joys of commuting to school, Journalism students know all too well the drive to the middle of nowhere for classes at Davie.
- Having a crappy schedule. It's a common fact that not many of the journalism classes are split into multiple days, as many are once a week for 3-4 hour periods. And since some of the instructors have actual jobs during the day, many of the classes are at night.
- Coffee is your best friend. I'm sorry, but "I don't drink coffee" just doesn't work anymore as an excuse. While you may not have a lot of homework and tests, the sheer amount of projects you have to complete leads to a messed up sleeping schedule and a dependence on coffee.
- Adobe Audition. You know this like the back of your hand. Using this software just comes so easy now that you can't understand when people say they don't know how to use it.
- Dr. Hofmann's handouts. Your backpack is literally filled with an entire forest worth of trees that were destroyed to print these extremely long readings.
- Knowing all your classmates. Once you get far enough into the major, you will know literally everyone in your class and you will all be stuck together until the day you graduate. Hope you made friends!
- Scrambling to finish a story. Every journalism student knows the struggle of waiting until the last minute to complete your SPOT story for Dr. Petrich, and harassing the hell out of your sources for an interview. You also know the evils of being ignored by someone who isn't nice enough to give you a quick interview.
- Hearing your own voice. In addition to listening to interviews, you also get used to hearing your own voice when it comes to producing stories and reading newscasts. Just embrace it and stop hating it.
- Knowing how to do everything. You know how they say you have to be well rounded to get a job? Once you graduate as a Multimedia Journalism major, you should know how to write for both print and NPR style as well as use the software to produce radio stories. You may even be able to produce and create documentaries or other small films. The world is your oyster.
